Gotta go to a restaurant or drive thru? Read up before you eat up
Maybe the dangers will soak in. Maybe you'll just eliminate some extra bad stuff
IMPORTANT: I’m not a doctor, nutritionist, or expert. Hopefully “Newbtrition” can give you tips to make your life better, but you should a) do additional research and b) ask a doctor or other trained professional for nitty gritty stuff.
You know that additional research bit above? It fits the crux of this post like a glove.
In an ideal world, you’d be eating almost all of your meals at home, where you can jam your blender full of healthy stuff …
… and also piling salads high with spices and healthy goodness, all while avoiding most or all of the sneaky pitfalls of salt.
(Takes a beat, looks around, does some doom-scrolling.)
Unfortunately, tt appears that we don’t live in an ideal world.
If you’re eating outside the house, you’d be wise to start racking up a list of “lesser evils.” This is especially true in an office setting, where you may feel the need to escape for lunch every day.
(Pro tip: even if you pack your own lunch and just go to a park or something, get out of that pit of flop sweat whenever it makes sense.)
Whether you’re like me and you occasionally light money on fire at Starbucks, or you’re flying blind at seemingly healthy spots, you owe it to your health to make more informed decisions. Maybe these two exercises — one at Starbucks, one Chipotle journey — can help you start to improve about your own outside eating and drinking?
Because, chances are, that’s where your biggest mistakes are happening.
Want to eat better in worse situations? Find out more before you go eat — or even just next time you eat
The more I learn, the more I realize how capitalism feels conjoined with an unhealthy populace and a malevolent food supply. Lax regulations really grease the wheels to grease-packed arteries.
But at least some stuff kinda works out every now and then sorta. And so I say: at least the bigger companies usually disclose nutrition facts on their websites and/or apps.
Granted, that info isn’t always “accessible” or “transparent.” If you go to a place often, it’s worth squinting at their crummy PDFs, though.
Additionally, there are decent lists that can provide some general rules (both of these start with the advice that’s the very crux of this post. Still, there are enough obstacles that I’d highly recommend researching your favorites/things you grumble about but eat and drink all the time.
That knowledge could be especially effective if you feel pressured to join coworkers for meals, as you can campaign for places with better options.
These apps can help you make changes that can be pretty helpful, and find the sort of sneaky things that make an OK meal turn diabolical
Recall one of the most important revelations of Newbtrition:
Businesses aren’t cooking for their friends, family, or themselves. Thus, they don’t ask themselves “do I really need this much salt/cheese/sauce?”
Such a thought can steer you in situations both obvious and subtle.
Take Starbucks, for instance.
For the last couple years, the grande brown sugar oatmilk shaken espresso (street tuffs call it the GBSOSE) was my poison of choice. The reasoning was and is simple: it’s tasty without being absolutely heinous calorie and sugar-wise, like a frappuccino.
A frappuccino should be called a Frankenccino, imo.
Anyway, take a look at the nutrition facts of the GBSOSE, via Starbucks’ website:
Even in the pre-Newbtrition era, I wasn’t over the moon about 120 calories and 12g of sugar. Also, I’d note that there’s 115gm of sodium for a less over-the-top coffee drink. Sneeeaky.
However, the real eye-popper is the massive dose of caffeine (255mg). Turns out this monster contains three shots of espresso. These are the things you notice when you dig deeper and look at a customization menu like this.
During my next Starbucks trip, I scaled things back: 2 pumps of brown sugar syrup and two shots of espresso. My wife and I didn’t notice any difference.
Your wallet and your body would likely thank you for limiting your Starbucks/other pricey drink joint trips. But if you need that fix — or, frankly, just crave a little drive — try to lessen the blow.
Tweaks can really make a difference at a place like Starbucks. Consider the sheer array of milk/milk substitute options:
Experiment with different options, and make honest appraisals. You don’t want tweaks to ruin the drink, but if you can cut down on the bad stuff, you could really make those Bucks Trips lower-guilt (beyond the whole getting hosed price wise).
You can apply these changes to, say, not having whipped cream or asking for them to go light on it — heck, even scoop some of it off the top and give it to your doggo, or something. With something like whipped cream, ask yourself: is it really affecting the flavor, or is it just sort of melting into it and ramping up the calories?
Example of sodium being sneaky in chicken #2,059
Back when I leaned on Wendy’s too much, I wasn’t naive enough to think it was “healthy.” Instead, I thought I was sequestering my bad decision.
This post provides much better ways to quarantine your gaffes:
Anyway, let’s do the (not-enough) math: 490 calories for the spicy chicken sandwich, 260 if you’re “good” and order small fries, and “zero” for diet soda. Again, no sense acting like this is a wise choice, yet you can talk yourself into surrounding that 750-calorie investment with better choices throughout the day.
Dig a little deeper and you realize that you’ve actually made bigger mistakes than you initially thought, though.
The fries pack 470 mg of sodium just for a small, while the spicy chicken rolls 1,160 mg of sodium and 70 mg of cholesterol your way. So, that combo already soaked up the daily sodium limit for what a healthy adult should try to limit themselves to, and added all sorts of bad stuff, while being nutrition-light enough that you’ll be hungry again soon enough.
Jarringly, a Wendy’s grilled chicken sandwich has more cholesterol at 95mg and almost as much sodium (850mg), really raining on that “only 350 calories” parade.
Again, these are the more moderate entrees on the menu. Sure, the stuff that looks closer to a half-joke is even worse, but you should at least see and hear that train coming for you.
(If you go with a salad, be careful with how you apply dressing, maybe pick out some of the bad stuff, and consider that chicken makes it another dangerous cholesterol proposition. Not great, Bob.)
Dig for options, and pay attention to details
About a decade ago, I lost a lot of weight, but ultimately failed to keep it off because of a host of reasons. Big picture, some tweaks were unsustainable. Looking back, though: I was also too concerned with calories and protein, and too easily ignored cholesterol and sodium.
In trying to imagine what I’d order at Chipotle if I had to today, I’ve come to question how well you can really mitigate the sodium damage. But you can still construct something that at least has some of the good and less of the bad. Consider a few points.
There are some new menu items (and a “lifestyle bowl”) that have scarce details. So the next bullet point is mostly going off of the PDF you have to squint at. Those sly dogs aren’t exactly putting the sodium information front-and-center (at least on the desktop version of the site).
Just about every meat option with full nutrition facts has its issues. Heck, that includes something of promise: sofritas, their soy/whatever substitute. Each 4 oz. serving is a manageable 150 calories, packs 8g of protein, and even 3g of fiber. Unfortunately, they also carry 560 mg of sodium, starting you off on the wrong foot when you consider all of the sauces/cheeses on hand.
Strangely, chicken may be the worst meat option. The cholesterol in the chicken is a resounding 125mg, towering over steak (80mg) as well as barbacoa and carnitas (both less than 70mg).
Steak may be the lesser evil — if you won’t eat the sofritas — as its sodium is kinda OK at 330mg, and packs 150 calories. Note the evil part, though. Those 80mg of cholesterol are not good.
All of that said, PLEASE go with a bowl. The standard big tortilla is listed at 320 calories, 50g of carbohydrates, and a dismaying 600mg of sodium. (Again, bread-type-stuff can escalate your sodium intake to a terrifying degree.)
If you want to do the math, you’re probably better off with a more transparent nutrition calculator, like the one here.
So, what would I do? Besides grumble, you mean? Ponder elements of a hypothetical salad bowl:
— salad base. Extra romaine at the end if you’re feeling bold.
—sofritas. Here are the facts on those.
—black beans (210mg of sodium is tough for black beans, but they give you 7g of fiber and 8g of protein). You could absolutely just do black beans instead of sofritas, rather than with them, especially if you’re not too famished.
—guacamole … but honestly, probably on the side. Love the filling, heart-healthy aspects of avocados. Unfortunately, chipotle’s formula leaves it with 370mg of sodium. Maybe just use some, or maybe sacrifice the next item altogether.
— brown rice, if you’re desperate for filler? Not over the moon about it.
— I do NOT recommend their house Vinaigrette, even on the side. The 220 calories and 12g of sugar are cringe-inducing; the 850mg of sodium are downright hostile.
— Go green chili or corn salsa instead, preferably the green chili (on the side, especially if you’re sensitive to moderate spiciness). A 2 oz. green chili serving is just 15 calories and a begrudging 260mg of sodium. The fresh tomato and red chili options both have more than 500mg of sodium per serving, so avoid those.
Here’s what that meal would look like *with everything on it, not to the side* via nutritionix’s calculator.
Not great, especially if you don’t get saltier stuff on the side (to me, 1,600mg of sodium slightly exceeds the daily maximum). That said, such a meal would give you more fiber than many people consume in a day, some vitamins, protein, and zero cholesterol.
Out of curiosity, I checked what would be a common bowl from my actual chipotle-eating days: double steak, black beans, guacamole, green chili salsa, and let’s assume I was bad that day and added sour cream:
In those cases, I’d ask for just a little dollop of sour cream, but you should resist that urge. The same with cheese. They both really tack on bad stuff, and I’d argue their flavors end up overpowered, anyway.
Play around with nutrition calculators, and try not to get discouraged. If you still need to hit Chipotle, you can make better decisions, and then maybe make a vastly healthier, comparably tasty version of your own in the future.
I, for one, aspire to construct a transcendent Jimbopotle bowl one day. Are sofritas any good?